Monday, April 1, 2013

Family History by Newswire

Imagine waking up to read the news, and seeing an article
about one of your own ancestors.

Well, that isn’t exactly
the way it happened for me, but it was close. Instead of reading about a
relative, thanks to a story carried by a news service like Associated Press, I
got to read the same version of a story, over and over again, thanks to its
distribution through a news syndicate similar to the organization we know today
as Associated Press.

Such a scenario didn’t happen this morning—as I’m sure you,
as a fellow family history researcher, realized—but happened thanks to the
aggregate of historic newspaper collections frequented by genealogists.

When I do get the
chance to wake up and head for my (historic) newspaper on my digital doorstep, I
generally use search parameters to limit the number of hits that would tempt me
to go off on bunny trails. That prevents me from pursuing those fascinating, “ooh,
shiny” stories that have nothing to do with my genealogical goals.

Case in point is the 1921 wedding story about Samuel W. Bean. Remember when I mentioned finding an article about Sam’s marriage to Maud
Woodworth? The small, private ceremony took place in Oakland, California.
For some reason, I happened to stumble upon a newspaper story reporting that
occasion—in Syracuse, New York.

Finding that story was actually a fluke. Believing that “Samuel
Bean” would be too common a name, when searching for any mention of my target
person in historic newspaper sites, I generally limit my search to California newspapers. In some online
collections—such as the California Digital Newspaper Collection—I further
specify only the northern
California newspapers, to avoid mentions of other Beans who might
coincidentally have had the same name in a population center, say, the size of
Los Angeles.

Of course, that eliminates the possibility that I’d find
anything about our Sam Bean in any
other parts of the country.

How I found that article about Sam and Maud in the Syracuse paper, I’ll
never know. Thankfully, though—thanks to whatever form of serendipity it was—that
discovery, and our subsequent conversation about the article in that post's comment section, got me to
thinking.

So I went back to some of my favorite sites and took a
second look. This time, I took the parameters blinders off, and let the “false”
hits rain down on me.

For one thing, I noticed that the original article in the Syracuse paper was
provided by what has generally been called a newswire. Newswires have had a
history of their own in the world of journalism. I remember in my radio days,
going to collect the items from the “feed” for the drive time newscast. Of
course, those days are long since superseded by other forms of news delivery,
but one relic of that bygone era still remains as a name you may recognize: the
Associated Press.

In the case of Sam’s story, it was a competing news agency
which delivered the story to far-flung places such as Syracuse, New York:
the International News Service. Not surprisingly, the INS had a decidedly
western perspective, having been founded by newspaper publisher William
Randolph Hearst. Perhaps it was this California
slant that opened the way for insignificant Sam Bean’s story to be broadcast
around the nation.

It wasn’t, you see, just Syracuse which carried the story. I went back
to both the NewspaperArchive.com and Old Fulton Post Cards websites to
recreate the “Samuel W. Bean” search—this time minus the California limits. Apparently, Sam and Maud
saw their story carried in other newspapers, too, such as the New Castle News and the (Brooklyn, New
York) Daily Star—all under the byline of the International News Service.

Whether Sam and Maud also happened to have toured those
areas for their speaking engagements, or stopped there while selling Sam’s books of poetry, I
can’t yet say.

But I did learn the lesson to resist the urge to limit
search results to only the geographic
area which I knew they called home. Sometimes, the bigger story has more
details than those I’ve already uncovered.

Your blog is so *bad* for my genealogical productivity.... Each post is so well done, and so fascinating! And then I just have to click on one of the "You Might Like" posts. And then another. And then I have to read the befores and afters about that one, which leads to another, and.... You get the picture."Bunny trail" doesn't even come close ;-)Thanks for what you do! I really enjoy it!

No kidding! So the INS had a western perspective. Huh! So the question "who writes history" resembles the question "who decides the news." This gets me wondering if the attempted killing of my grandfather got reported out of Sumter County, SC. Maybe I should look. And take the limits off! Kind of exciting, actually.

Yes, Mariann, it is quite exciting. Hopefully, you will find something more about your story. Although, yes, it does depend on whether the newswires picked it up.

You bring up an interesting observation in those parallel thoughts, "who decides the news" and "who writes history." It has always seemed to be a case in the realm of who calls the "shots," so to speak (sorry about that!).

All up until now, that is. With the technology at our fingertips at this point, all of us are freed up to add to the news that gets out there. However, in the resultant cacophony, all we are doing is adding to the noise unless we light upon a way to escort others to the story we have to tell. It's no longer about who is pushing the news; it's about the pull.

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.